Islay Ales

Islay Ales Reception, Shop and
Brewery

A short distance north east of Bridgend on the
Port Askaig road, a sign points off to
the left to "Islay House Square". Islay House Square was once the estate
buildings and the steadings for Islay
House, but is now home to a range of businesses, many run by local
craftspeople. Hidden away in a corner of the square are the premises of Islay
Ales, which are well worth seeking out.

Islay is an island with no fewer
than eight distilleries, but only one brewery. Islay Ales' aim is to produce
hand crafted, high quality, cask and bottle conditioned beers (more usually
known as real ales) for sale in pubs and hotels on
Islay,Jura and Colonsay or, in the case of the
bottled product, more widely. For visitors to Islay who may know more about whisky than beer,
real ale is usually defined as beer which has been brewed from traditional
ingredients; which has been matured by secondary fermentation in the vessel
(usually a cask or a bottle) from which it is dispensed; and which, critically,
is served without the use of additional carbon dioxide to provide pressure or
blanket the ale.

Visitors to the brewery find that Islay Ales' premises have two main
areas. The shop and reception is an attractive space in which bottles of the
company's ales can be purchased: and which has handpumps to allow the different
ales produced to be sampled. This is also where last minute preparation such as
labelling takes place.

Next door is the brewery itself. Small real ale breweries tend to
occupy fairly functional spaces, and Islay Ales is no exception. Visitors
calling in as part of a tour of Islay's distilleries might be surprised to find
the whole brewing operation taking place in a single room which in terms of
scale and style has little in common with modern distilleries.

Despite this, elements of the process, and some of the ingredients,
are common between brewing and distilling. Islay Ales buys in its malted
barley, like most distilleries, though the types used by the two industries are
specific to each. The grain is then mashed, again as in a distillery, and the
resulting brew is then fermented. The first major difference between the two
processes happens before the fermentation begins. Most beers have an essential
ingredient not used in making malt whisky: hops. These are introduced to the
process when the wort - the liquid containing all the sugars from the malt - is
boiled prior to cooling and fermentation, and provide an important part of the
flavour of the ale that eventually emerges from the process.

In a distillery the moderately alcoholic liquor that emerges from
the fermentation is the starting point for the real heart of the process, the
distilling. In a brewery, what emerges from the fermenting vessels is close to
the finished product, which is then placed in casks or bottles for its
secondary fermentation.

The use in combination of different malts, different hops, and
slight variations of process and timing, mean that many different styles of ale
can be produced. At the time of writing Islay Ales produce seven different
ales, though it is worth noting that a brewery's product range tends to evolve
over time with new ales being introduced and older ones fading away. At Islay
Ales the range extends from "Finlaggan Ale", a fruity hoppy ale with 3.7%
alcohol by volume (ABV), to "Nerabus Ale", a "winter warmer" style of ale with
a much darker colour and a higher alcohol content at 4.8% ABV.

Islay Ales was founded in 2003 by real ale enthusiasts Paul
Hathaway, Paul Capper and Walter Schobert. Their shared interest in both beer
and Islay led them to the natural conclusion
that an island with so many distilleries really needed a brewery, and Islay
Ales is the result.